Hupsheta gave a small laugh. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“Look at this.” Nikon’s voice was low, but with an undercurrent of rage that had me grateful it wasn’t directed at me. “This is a map made from magic sand. I used it to send me in the direction of the plans. Guess where it led me? Here,” he said.
What? My plan not only worked, but also brought him to where we were already hiding?
“It must be a faulty map, then,” she replied with a tight tone.
“I don’t think so. I’ve been wondering what happened to them. Who would have known where I hid them? You’ve been spying on me, haven’t you, Hupsheta?”
I didn’t trust the calm in his whispered words. He sounded more than furious. I stood, and all was quiet. Who knew how long she planned on dragging this out, but he would get answers from her.
Finally, she gave a little laugh. “You don’t really think I had anything to do with that, do you?”
“You had everything to do with it. Where are they?” Nikon asked.
She harrumphed. “If you must hear it from me, yes, I had been following you before you disappeared. There was a lot going on—there’s still a lot going on. I have to keep a pulse on everything that’s happening, to make sure I’m not going to come in any danger. So did I take your precious plans? You bet I did. I’d do it again too if things came to it.”
I hissed. That woman needed a good bashing from my sticks.
“Where are they?” Nikon’s tone told me he was barely holding in his anger. “I want them back. Now.”
“If you wait here, I’ll go get them.”
“I don’t think so. For all I know, you’re going to turn us in to the elite warriors.”
“Now, why would I do that, when there are things you’ve promised me?” Her words sounded so certain, I wanted to wipe the smugness from them. But there would be none of that. We wanted to stay here and safe. Though who knew if this place was really safe anymore?
“I’ll come too, whether you like it or not,” he said. “Cass, Zoe, Kaius, we’ll be back shortly.”
Their footsteps went up the stairs, and a thump came toward me.
I reached down so Tewy could climb up my arm and make a spot for himself on my shoulder. My monkey was safe, but my friend was furious. I couldn’t blame him. If I’d been spied on and stolen from, I’d be more than angry myself. It was ironic, though, that the plans he stole were stolen by another.
“What are these plans they’re talking about?” Zoe asked me.
That was right—she and Kaius hadn’t heard about the plans. “You remember back in the first rebellion meeting at Itpy, where they were talking about something that’d been stolen from the Reding? Something he was searching for?”
“Let me guess,” Kaius said. “Nikon was the one that took it.”
As much as I didn’t want to give him away, there was no point in hiding it. Besides, if I couldn’t trust these two, and perhaps Husani, I might as well turn myself over to Antonia.
Though why did she want me? I couldn’t figure out what it could be. I focused back on the conversation at hand. “He was.”
“I wouldn’t have suspected him,” Zoe said. “Of course, when he came to that meeting, I hadn’t found out he was an elite warrior. Now that I know, I’m not so sure.”
“I’d like to say I wouldn’t have suspected either, but he was wearing armor when we first met. I felt it myself,” I said.
“You touched him the first time you met?” Zoe asked.
Heat rose to my cheeks. “He was injured and lying unconscious on my floor.” No sense telling them that was partly because I’d knocked him out with my cane.
“I see.” And it sounded like she did see.
Why were Kaius and Husani so silent? What did they think of all this? I didn’t want to ask and find out it made them more skeptical of us. I turned my thoughts to Nikon and Hupsheta.
Had she already read whatever the plans contained? Did she know what they were about? Why continue to hide them from Nikon if that was the case?
There was so much I didn’t understand. So much I was missing out on. I wanted to change that, but how? Hupsheta’s light steps and Nikon’s near-silent ones returned.
“Well?” I asked before they’d both descended.
“Can any of you read?” Nikon asked.
I couldn't, for obvious reasons, and Nikon struggled with it. “What about your friend here? Hasn’t she already done so?” I asked, meaning Hupsheta.
“She can’t read either.”
That gave me perverse enjoyment. Miss High and Mighty wasn’t as high and mighty as she pretended to be.
“Some people don’t have a need for literature,” she said, voice high.
I shook my head. I used to be able to read before I went blind. I couldn’t remember the shape of words now, but at one time, they’d been important to me. It was rare for people to read, but it was also a valuable skill, not to be looked down upon. Though, from her tone, she knew that.
“Kaius can,” Zoe said. “I never learned how, but he was fortunate to have a different upbringing than me.”
There was so much I hadn’t learned about Kaius. About both of them, really. Why did they have a different upbringing if they were siblings? I was more curious about the plans at this point though. “Would you be willing to read it for us, Kaius?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“After Hupsheta leaves,” Nikon said.
Sounded like a fair request.
She huffed. “I don’t think so. This is my house. I can go wherever I want.”
“We understand that,” Nikon said. “And we appreciate you letting us stay in your hideout, though I’ve already paid you for it, but there are some things that the fewer people hear, the better. I’d hate for this to be one of those things, and have you find yourself in trouble because of it.”
She growled. “I should have left them hidden behind that stone. Then I wouldn’t be caught up in the drama that always seems to follow you, Nikon.”
What drama was she talking about? Was it just the warriors who chased him when he first met me, or something more?
“Fine,” she said before I got a chance to finish collecting my thoughts. “But if it has to do with me, should it affect me adversely, I expect you to inform me.”
“I will,” he said.
Her steps weren’t that light as she trudged up the stairs and banged the door closed. Everyone was silent a moment longer, until Tewy gave an ooo oo. I trusted him to break the silence.
“If you’d read this for me, Kaius, I would be most grateful,” Nikon said.
“Of course.” A shuffle of movement, then— “You’ll have to forgive me; I haven’t had as much a chance to read as of late as I used to. It will take me a moment. It’s something to do with water, though.”
“As in the river?” I asked. What other water could it be? A well like the marauders had? But the Reding didn’t have access to their camp. The river was the only source I knew of.
“I believe so. The water of life and death.”
That explained the river better than I’d heard anyone put it before. Life from the waterfall where it came from, where it helped grow our food and gave us drinking water and everything else we needed to survive. Death, when we sent our mummies down its path, to go into the eternities.
“They’ve done something to the water.” Kaius’s voice was tight.
“What?” Nikon asked. “And who’s done it?”
“This doesn’t say. It refers to the waterfall, though.”
Which made sense, because that was what had led Nikon to my home in the first place.
“The river of life and death has been completed. It’s all come together, though the outcome has been much different than I hoped for. The waterfall carries it forth, affecting everyone it touches. While my experiment is not a success, the water has made changes I can utilize. The people will bend to my will.” Kaius’s tone was soft but tight. “That’s it. That’s all the plans say.”
“Not much of a plan then,” I said.
“There’s a drawing of the river, arrows following the flow,” Kaius added.
“So much hullabaloo over so little?” Zoe asked.
“I’m not certain it’s so little,” Nikon replied.
I wasn’t either. “If it’s affecting the water we’re in, whatever it is could be a problem. I’m not sure I want to drink it anymore.” And to think I’d not only been drinking it, but also swimming in it, and washing and fishing, and so much more. But if I didn’t use it, what else was there? “As the papyrus said, the river is our life and death. What they did, it doesn’t sound like a good thing.”
“Agreed.” Nikon’s voice was near. He wrapped an arm around me. Pulled me close. “If there was any other source for water, I’d use it.”
We both sat, putting our backs against the wall. I leaned into him. What implications did this have for us? For the whole of Eppla? What had this person done to our water, to affect our country? How were we to be bent to their will, and who was the writer? “Do you have any idea how old this papyrus is? When was it written?”
“I don’t,” Kaius said.
“I came by it a few weeks before I met you, Cass.” Nikon kept his arm around me, while Tewy tugged on strands of my hair.
“But it could be ancient, or it could have been written the day you found it.” I wished there was some way to tell.
“It is a little worn,” Zoe said. “The papyrus doesn’t look new by any means. It seems as if it’s been through a lot, before it wound up here.”
“And how did you get it?” Husani asked. “Cassandra said you stole it, but she didn’t elaborate on from whom or why.”
“And I’m not going to either,” Nikon said. “It’s dangerous enough that you all should listen to your conscience on what you do with the information. I’m not going to risk you further by telling you more.”
It was good he’d already told me, because I would have been filled with curiosity. What was the Reding doing with such information? Had he been the one to write it, or had he acquired it from someone else? Reading it yielded more questions than answers.